Nope. Not real; I'm currently floating.
Silly bogus comment aside: I hate paywalls.
Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
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Re: Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
#12I would like to respectfully say that this article is only superficially appealing and therefore not proper for HN. This is just a hypothesis without mathematical basis. All you really need to read is the last few paragraphs to see that there isn't any mathematical rigor to it. This is a whole article about speculation about gravity, and it wastes a lot of time trying to hype up a physicist that won't flush out his m…
In order for anyone to take your opinion about what is proper for HN seriously you need to post it from an account that actually has an investment in HN.
Re: Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relativity started with "what if we thought about it this way?". Just saying.
Yeah part of the process, because of this new paper someone might get an idea they wouldn't have had to expand upon it. You see articles stating that something broke the laws of physics when really it just didn't fit our current model of understanding.
> You see articles stating that something broke the
> laws of physics when really it just didn't fit our
> current model of understanding.
Re: Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
#14On the one hand, gravity hasn't been 'real' since Einstein: it's a secondary effect due to the curvature of space. On the other hand, gravity has been real since long before Newton: we experience it rather directly. The editorialized title gives the impression that there are entirely new insights concerning the 'reality' of gravity and that is certainly not the case.
Re: Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
#15On the one hand, gravity hasn't been 'real' since Einstein: it's a secondary effect due to the curvature of space. On the other hand, gravity has been real since long before Newton: we experience it rather directly. The editorialized title gives the impression that there are entirely new insights concerning the 'reality' of gravity and that is certainly not the case.
"Scientist has hypothesized that gravity's origin may be somewhat different from previously considered, with no effect whatsoever on the real world" doesn't make for a very sensatinal headline.
Re: Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
#16On the one hand, gravity hasn't been 'real' since Einstein: it's a secondary effect due to the curvature of space. On the other hand, gravity has been real since long before Newton: we experience it rather directly. The editorialized title gives the impression that there are entirely new insights concerning the 'reality' of gravity and that is certainly not the case.
"Scientist has hypothesized that gravity's origin may be somewhat different from previously considered, with no effect whatsoever on the real world" doesn't make for a very sensatinal headline.
The original headline 'A Scientist Takes On Gravity' is good enough for the NYT and therefore good enough for HN.
Re: Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
#17Does anyone else find it ironic that the way we usually visualize the cause of gravity (wells or dents or pockets formed in the fabric of spacetime) depends on gravity to cause things to fall into the wells? In the absence of gravity, it makes no sense to expect things to fall into the well.
Re: Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
#18Does anyone else find it ironic that the way we usually visualize the cause of gravity (wells or dents or pockets formed in the fabric of spacetime) depends on gravity to cause things to fall into the wells? In the absence of gravity, it makes no sense to expect things to fall into the well.
It sounds like you might be taking the 'bumpy surface' space-time metaphor too literally - I think it's only meant as an easy way to visualise the idea of curvature in more than three dimensions using our three-dimensional brains, rather than suggesting that there is actually a force acting perpendicular to the 'surface' the pulls objects into gravity wells.
Were that not the case, then, as you say, the external force required to make gravity work would be gravity itself, which is a bit like the homunculus theory of consciousness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus).
Re: Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
#19I would like to respectfully say that this article is only superficially appealing and therefore not proper for HN. This is just a hypothesis without mathematical basis. All you really need to read is the last few paragraphs to see that there isn't any mathematical rigor to it. This is a whole article about speculation about gravity, and it wastes a lot of time trying to hype up a physicist that won't flush out his m…
I haven't had a chance to go through the paper yet ( http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.0785 ), but it seems that he does make some derivations and proof sketches. Can someone verify this?
I'm not a physics major, but it appears superficial, non conclusive and light on math. At this point it's not a theory, but an (interesting as it may be) speculation.
Re: Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton
#20We are at a point where belief in a god is probably at an all time low due to our greater understanding of science without the basics being to complex. Gravity is currently a simple enough concept that most people can understand it in a local context. It will be interesting to see if in the future it is found that the laws of nature are much more complex than most of us can comprehend do more people again proclaim a…
The problem with that is that we'd ne using the word "God" to mean "I don't know".
Which doesn't tell us anything about God, what God wants, etc.
This is generally known as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps